


Stars

by Rynfinity



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2440334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no stars in the dungeon.  There is no darkness, even.  Not on the outside.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Takes place across the Thor movies, before the end of The Dark World.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Frigga sees more than she wishes.

"C'mere." Thor tugs eagerly at his brother's little wrist, dragging him forward with so much force that Loki stumbles and goes down hard onto his knees and free hand.

"Thor," Frigga chastises, "be careful with your brother. Eir will make sure your father spanks your little bottom all the way to Midgard if I have to beg her to heal Loki even one more time this week. There is a limit to her patience, my boy."

"Iss okay mama," Loki assures her, big green eyes brimming with tears. "Hees showme stars."

"Stars, is it?" Frigga kneels beside them and brushes chunks of dirt from the knees of Loki's leggings. "Well, then," she tells them, smiling as she blots Loki's tears, "there's no reason to hurry. It won't be dark for hours yet."

Thor pouts. "But Loki’s so slow, mama. We will miss them." Loki nods in solemn agreement; everything his brother does, he does too. It is by turns adorable and terrifying.

Frigga makes a big show of gazing up at the blue, cloudless arc of the sky far overhead. She reaches out and pulls both her boys gently close. "I think if you start after supper," she whispers conspiratorially, "and _walk_ , you will get there just fine."

"But mama," Thor protests, "after supper Loki will be asleep."

His little brother frowns. "Will not," he asserts, chin high. "Pwomise."

Loki keeps his promise, too. After supper the two of them approach Frigga hand-in-hand. Thor is heavy-lidded and yawning, but his brother is intent. Focused. Stubborn. Not for the first time Frigga pushes down a sharp stab of worry. She sees many threads in the course of her weaving; not a single one of Loki's threads is easy. "Stars, mama?" He gives Thor's hand a squeeze. "Pwease, mama? Pwease?"

They won't let her carry them. Instead, they insist on making their own way down the cut stone steps - which, for Loki, means edging far too close to a sequence of scary, barely-controlled tumbles - and out into the garden. Frigga of course goes with them. It is safe here, amongst the plants she lovingly tends, but the two of them are her precious darlings and she simply cannot be too careful.

In the end she sits beside them, skirts spread across the ground, as they sprawl on their backs in the midst of the small clearing and stare unblinking at the stars far above.

"Stars," Thor says firmly.

Loki nods, his fine hair dark against the moonlit blades of grass. "Pwetty."

He's right, and Frigga tells him so.

~

They have grown tall and spindly. Thor has more meat on him, but even Loki comes up to her forehead now. He is still his big brother's shadow, and the two of them still hold hands under the right circumstances. Frigga can see the first signs, though: Thor, gregarious and cheerful, makes friends easily. Loki, quiet and fiercely independent, doesn’t and acts as though it’s all on purpose. Like he in no way notices, let alone minds.

Frigga suspects, though, that he actually minds a great deal.

Consequently she is far less surprised than she perhaps should be when Sif shows up with hair first so close-cropped it might as well be gone entirely and then starting to grow in as coarse black stubble that couldn’t be less like the silky golden cloud she had once sported.

"It is high time we find a suitable outlet for your skills," Frigga tells Loki in private, later. "You have outgrown such childish tricks." He shrugs. "Ignore my advice if you will," she warns him, "but know you do so at a price."

He shrugs again, defiant. "She hates me anyway," he tells her. "Everyone does. I am no Thor."

Frigga gathers Loki close despite his protests. "You are my precious boy," she reminds him. "People fear what they do not understand."

Thor pokes a head in. "Loki!" Every time she sees him these days, Frigga could swear he has grown another inch. "There you are, brother."

Loki twists free of her grasp. "Go away," he snaps at Thor.

Thor catches his brother's wrist as Loki reaches out to shove past him. "Come with me,” Thor asks, and it’s almost a plea. “To the garden. It’s a beautiful night, and you have to see the stars."

Loki rolls his eyes, but he does go. Far more willingly than he lets on, too, Frigga cannot help but think.

She doesn't follow after the two of them anymore. Theirs is a fragile peace and she knows better than to strain it further.

When she looks down from one of the narrow balconies dotting the palace outer walls some minutes later, her boys are sprawled companionably in the grass, smiling and talking as they gaze up at the stars.

If Frigga could freeze time, she would. She can't, of course.

She wants to anyway.

~

Heimdall tells her Thor still watches the stars from Midgard, from the dark stillness of the desert. Her golden son sits atop the roof of the low, dilapidated building he now calls home. Frigga tries to get Loki to come with her on her observatory visits, to hear news of his brother; Asgard's mantle weighs heavy upon her younger son. Loki turns her down each and every time.

Her heart hurts with the bleakness of it.

One night, from yet another tiny balcony, she looks down to see movement in the garden: Loki, tall and reed thin in just an undertunic and leather breeches. His head and feet are bare. He sits gracefully down on the dew-dampened grass... then rests his face in his upturned hands.

His shoulders shake. Every now and then the wrenching sound of a choked-off sob makes it clear up to where she stands.

When she gets to the garden, hurrying along with her skirts caught up in her hands to keep from tripping, her poor boy turned king is gone. It is her turn to cry.

~

There are no stars in the dungeon. There is no darkness, even. Not on the outside.

It's hard for Frigga to reconcile the angry, bitter man standing before her with the little boy who once clung to her skirts; the one who once held his brother’s hand with sticky little fingers. When she sends her image close enough to touch, though, the stubborn jut of Loki's jaw is precisely the same as she remembers.

She has of course seen all of this coming. Much as she might wish otherwise, she cannot help but read it in the patterns she and her ladies weave... those, much as Frigga might wish it otherwise, they have long woven. The very first time Loki finds himself once again able look up and see the stars, she herself will be gazing down upon him from amongst them.

There is no helping it, no turning aside the inevitable. No point in hoping things can be different. Instead she turns away from the window and walks the long way out to the observatory, alone. “A time will come, and soon,” she tells Heimdall, “when you will have a chance to reunite my boys.” She looks up at the guardian, not smiling. “See to it that you do.”

A muscle in his jaw twitches, but Heimdall only nods. “My queen,” he acknowledges.

She walks past him into the archway beyond, skirts rustling, to gaze out at the great expanse of the universe beyond. “What is it you watch?”

Heimdall shrugs. It’s not a gesture he makes often. “What else,” he offers. “Only stars.”


End file.
